“So why was our son signing instead of talking, Keigo?” Touya asks me with a steely tone to his voice.

I gulp. "He was five when the Commission started training him in earnest. He came into his second quirk a year late, and as soon as it appeared, they wouldn't let go of the fact that he’s going to be more powerful than me."

Touya nods, probably thinking of how Endeavor acted the moment Shouto’s quirks manifested. "What's his second quirk?" There's a hint of jealousy in Touya's voice. Of course he'd be jealous. If he had gotten both his parents' quirks, he wouldn't have been pushed to the side the way that he had been.

"Obviously, based on his wings, he has my Fierce Wings, but he also inherited ice from you. His second quirk is called Frost Breath because the ice only comes out his mouth. The only issue is that he's basically the opposite of you." I hate having to explain this. I don't like remembering the state Kaito was in that day. "While you have a fire quirk with an affinity towards cold, Kaito has an ice quirk with an affinity towards heat. His throat couldn't handle the extreme cold, and it paralized his vocal chords, permanently." I'm literally breaking down in tears again as if it happened just yesterday. "Touya, he was gasping for breath. They forced him to use his secondary quirk so much that he almost couldn't breathe."

Even through my tears, I can see the war in Touya's eyes. He can't seem to decide between his anger and his wish to comfort me. Eventually the latter feeling wins, and he pulls me into a hug. "I hate that I left you to deal with all that on your own. If I hadn't let my selfishness take over, I could have known. I could have helped you protect him."

"They would have just used him against you too." I know he blames himself for something he couldn't control. He didn't know, and he could only take so much more of the way Endeavor had treated him. "Ever since that day, though, his secondary quirk doesn't get trained much unless I do something the Commission doesn't like. The last time they did that, I was trying to be firm with them. I wanted to remind them who's child he is before starting one of my more recent missions, and when I got back, he was struggling so hard to be able to breathe. They finally had a support item made to keep his throat warm while he uses that damned quirk, but that doesn’t change the damage it's already caused."

"Tell me who I need to fucking kill." Touya pulls out of the hug to look me in the eye. "What those bastards were doing to you was one thing, but putting an innocent child through that kind of torture just to control their parent! I'll fucking kill them!"

I decide that it's time to not so subtly change the subject. I tell Touya more about Kaito’s favorite things, like how his favorite color is black and that he always says his favorite hero is me, but not as Hawks. No, his favorite hero is me as his momma bird who does everything in his power to protect him.

Touya chuckles. “I wish I could have said the same about either of my parents, but, well, you know how things went with that.”

Unfortunately, I know all too well what his past was like. I don’t say anything in response, leaving room for Touya to ask me questions about our son. The silence doesn’t last long as he thinks of something that seems to have been bothering him since he found out about Kaito based off of his facial expression.

“Why does he call you mom?” Touya asks. “When Toga told me about him, I thought maybe whoever your partner was probably forced the title on you, but you’ve been raising him by yourself. I guess it just seems like being called mom would trigger your dysphoria.”

Touya really does still care about me. I grin. “While I watched over his egg, I definitely contemplated being called dad since I obviously didn’t think you were alive, but the moment he hatched, and I saw how much he looked like you, I just couldn’t bring myself to take the title away from you. It didn’t matter that you were gone because you would always be there in my heart and in his features. I could have taken on a different term for dad, sure, but mom just felt right no matter how feminine the title is.” I shrug. “I mean, biologically, that’s who I am, so…”

I start to panic when I see blood trailing down Touya’s face, but he simply wipes it away as if it’s nothing. When I pay closer attention, I realize that the blood is seeping from the patches of dead skin near his eyes. Are his tear ducts so burnt up that when he cries, it comes out as blood instead of tears? How dry are his eyes without having tear ducts to continuously moisten them?

“I don’t deserve it.” Touya’s voice wavers as if he’s trying to hold back sobs. “I’ve killed people, Keigo. I’ve hurt people. I fucking kidnapped a kid. How can you be so calm and nonchalant about telling me all these things about our son when you should honestly be hiding him from me. I shouldn’t be allowed to get to know him. I’m a fucking villain, Keigo!”

I scoff. “Tell me, do you know which hero was investigating your vigilante acts, Touya?”

He looks at me confused.

“I was in charge of the investigation. I know all about the people you helped.” I grab his face and look him in the eyes. “I was the one who got to talk to the ones you saved. Touya, do you know how many of them had no way out without the help you provided?" I sigh as he still doesn't get it. "You didn't kill innocent people. You killed murderers and rapists and abusers. I don't care if you don't have the official title, you are a hero."

Stating those words, the words I've wanted to tell the Ash Vigilante since the moment I was put on the case, makes me realize exactly who he is. Touya may not have gone down the same path as I did, but in his own way, he is a hero. I can't hold back the feelings I've wanted to express any longer, so I push Touya to the ground and smash my lips onto what's left of his. He may not be the same boy that I knew as a teenager, but deep down inside, Dabi is still Touya, my Touya.

At some point, the kiss gets extremely heated, and I'm the one on the bottom now. I've only known that Dabi is Touya for a week, but in that week a great deal of sexual tension has built up as if all ten of our missed years have stacked on each other in just a few short days. The tension has built so high that I'm not entirely shocked that it's snapped already.

"I'm glad to know that part of you didn't get burnt off," I comment jokingly as we both shuffle around in the dark to throw our clothes back on.

Touya catches on to the joking mood. "Always was your favorite part, wasn't it?"

I roll my eyes before getting serious again. "We need to find a way to get Kaito out of the Commission's hands. I've been trying to hint about his existence to Endeavor, but…"

I don't get to finish as Touya cuts me off. "Absolutely not! We are not going through that bastard. What's going to happen when he finds out about Kaito’s dual quirks? He'll just try to train him like he did me, like he did Shouto!"

"Okay. Okay," I do my best to placate him so that we can actually get something figured out. "If not Endeavor, who else has enough sway to go against the Commission? It's not like All Might is active anymore."

Touya looks like he's thinking. "What about Eraserhead?"

My head whips back to facing him so fast I almost give myself whiplash. "What could Eraserhead do? He's just an underground hero and a teacher."

Touya shrugs. "The boss constantly talks about him and the things he's done. Sometimes I wonder if he has, like, a man crush on the hero or something, but either way, Shigaraki says the man knows his way around the Commission's bureaucracy. Talking to him might be worth a shot. Not to mention, he's exceedingly protective of his students. I'm sure he'd be willing to fight for a kid who has no way to defend himself."

I shrug. If Touya thinks talking with Eraserhead will help, it's worth a shot. One way or another, we need to get my son, our son, away from the Hero Commission.

Next chapter will be posted on TheWriterShikari787 's copy of the story.